One bright, sunny, and very hot day, I traversed the Texas portion of US 82 into Archer County from Wichita County, on my way to some...

If you counted yourself among the fashionable pioneer set, a MUST-DO was to cross into Indian Territory by way of the Doan's Store....

One of the easiest ways to spot a ghost town is to follow abandoned railroad lines. When the companies were building their right-of-ways...

Eagletown (McCurtain County, Oklahoma) began its existence within a decade after the Louisiana Purchase. American settlers, seeking new...

Like Sulphur 40 miles to the west, Bromide (Johnston County, Oklahoma) was a spa town at the turn of the 20th century. Nestled inside...

Map fro the 28th Congressional Session, 1848, of distances between federal outposts in the American Southwest (LOC). The published...

I have never seen Mansura, Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, well-represented on any map prior to satellite data. But we can figure out why...

The Red River Valley above Fulton/ Clarksville / Fort Towson was not fully mapped until after the Civil War. The first regional mapping...

The Oklahoma Historical Society has an unbelievable amount of photographs that only occasionally see the light of day. Their photos,...

Jefferson, the county seat of Marion County, Texas, became an inland port after the first federal Red River raft (massive log jam)...

Due to work related activities, I've been nosing around Gainesville (Cooke County, Texas) lately. The city was founded as a settlement in...

Texas likes that it's big, and between 1860 and 1894, it was actually a million and a half acres larger than it is today. That's because...

Vial's "Spanish Road" route begins in Natchitoches and passes by homes and ranches of traders/planters. It mentions several...

One of the least studied but apparently, major trade arteries emanating from the Red River was the so-called "Great Spanish Road" that...

This map, published in Annaberg (Saxony), explained the relative location of Texas and the roads and trails that led to the California...

In 1937, George Conrad, Jr. was interviewed by the WPA's Federal Writer's Project. Born in slavery on February 23, 1860 at Connversville,...

Founded in 1867, Fort Griffin (Shackleford County, Texas) is now a state historic site with lots of scenic ruins on a mesquite-heavy...

Every Veteran's Day - aka Armistice Day - I like to post about a Great War (WWI) veteran because these men hoped that this was the "war...

Since 1880s at least, and most likely at least two decades prior, the corner of State/ East Fourth/ Sam Rayburn and North Chestnut...

When Sam Rayburn, U.S. Speaker of the House from Bonham (Fannin County, Texas), proposed the flood control project for the Red River at...